Turkish President Abdullah Gul on Monday appealed for calm as tensions rose between the government and army over an alleged plan to topple the ruling party, Anatolia news agency reported.
"It is very important to have harmony and coordination between state organs and for everyone to focus on Turkey's priorities," Gul was quoted by the agency as telling reporters on his plane while returning from an official trip to China.
"If we have such an atmosphere, we will achieve much progress in a short time. We will easily resolve our problems…and make Turkey stronger economically, politically and democratically," he added.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the army has been locked in disagreement over a purported plan by members of the military to discredit the government, which was leaked to the media earlier this month.
The army categorically rejected the paper as forgery and called on civilian prosecutors to investigate "who fabricated the document and for what reasons… and whether their objective was to tarnish the Turkish Armed Forces."
The AKP has already filed a formal complaint over the alleged scheme which was published by the liberal newspaper Taraf, a regular critic of the army.
Suggesting that the document could be the work of those who wanted to disrupt relations between the government and the army, Gul said: "As the army chief (Ilker Basbug) has said, the armed forces are committed to democracy and the rule of law."
Basbug held a 90-minute extraordinary meeting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier Monday in Ankara, but neither man made a statement afterwards.
The talks came a day before a meeting of the National Security Council — the country's top advisory body bringing together military and civilian leaders — in which Basbug said he would bring the alleged plot document to the agenda.
The document is said to have been seized from a former army officer, now among the suspects in a controversial probe into a secularist-nationalist network accused of plotting to prompt a military coup against the AKP.
The suspect says the document did not come from him.
The Turkish army, which has unseated four governments since 1960, has often clashed with the AKP, the offshoot of a now-banned Islamist movement which came to power in 2002.
Critics accuse the party of flouting the mainly Muslim country's secular principles.
The military however has kept a low profile in the past two years and chief of general staff Basbug has often emphasized respect for democracy.
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